


Inescapable Reality

by Drasi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Sloth Demons (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5145011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drasi/pseuds/Drasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Inquisitor mistakenly falls into the clutches of a sloth demon, but is she even strong enough to escape her dreams? (Light endgame/romance spoilers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inescapable Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first fic on AO3, so I'm still trying to figure out the system and how everything works here. This drabble (I guess you can call it that) is based on what I thought a sloth demon dream would be like for my Inquisitor, but I tried my best to keep her name out of it so that it remains as a (mostly) generic Inquisitor with a romanced Blackwall. Enjoy!

The Inquisitor didn’t know much about magic, but she knew enough to understand that the warped shape huddled in the corner was some kind of demon, and definitely not one to be trifled with. She had stumbled upon it by accident as she had rushed too far ahead of her party into the caves. It had all been so sudden -  she didn’t even have time to nock an arrow before her legs grew weak beneath her and her bow clattered to the ground beside her. Its deep, booming laughter echoed all around as she collapsed and, despite her best efforts, lost consciousness.

 

****

 

A cool breeze brushed across her face, rustling the tall grasses around her. She opened her eyes to see a clear blue sky above her instead of the cracked, grey ceiling of the cave. For a moment she felt panic - where was she? How did she get out of the cave? How did she even get out of Emprise du Lion? The panic passed as a tiny thought crept up into the back of her mind.

_It was just a dream._

That’s right. The Inquisitor sat up and saw a wooden house not far away, smoke floating into the sky from its chimney and a few wooden toys scattered around the entrance. Next to it was a fenced off plot for the vegetables she had been growing there, and she could hear the sounds of the horses in the barn a little ways behind her. A small laugh escaped her lips. How could she have been so silly? Of course it was a dream. She hadn’t been back to Emprise du Lion in years. This was her home.

“Mama! Mama!” A little girl threw open the door to the house and came bounding toward the Inquisitor. Her black hair had been pulled back into two uneven, haphazard braids, but she had the biggest smile on her face as she nearly tackled the Inquisitor back to the ground with hug.

“Papa braided my hair! See?” The little girl turned her head back and forth to show off the ridiculous-looking braids. Even though the Inquisitor was having trouble reconciling exactly who this small girl was, she still had to laugh at her antics. She couldn’t have been more than five years old, but her features were oddly familiar. It was when she looked into the child’s eyes that she realized exactly who she was. They had the same round shape as the Inquisitor, but the color was exactly the same as -

“Come back here, lass! I wasn’t done with those yet!” Blackwall stepped through the doorway to the house, arms crossed over his chest in mock anger at the young girl. For a moment the Inquisitor was confused. She had a daughter? With Blackwall? Looking at the little girl, though, there was no denying it - she was a perfect mix of her two parents. By the time the realization had sunk in, Blackwall had already walked over to them and scooped the giggling girl up into his arms.

“I didn’t even get to put the ribbons in yet,” Blackwall chuckled as he gently tugged at the end of one of the girl’s braids. She broke into another fit of giggles and wriggled in Blackwall’s arms, but he held her tight and wouldn’t let her fall just yet.

“Is something wrong?” Blackwall asked when he looked back down at the Inquisitor. She wanted to shout yes! Something was terribly, terribly wrong, but for the life of her she just couldn’t think of what it was anymore. As she looked around her, everything seemed perfect.

“Just a bad dream, I suppose.” The Inquisitor let out a nervous laugh. “I guess there are better places to fall asleep than on the ground.” The little girl finally managed to break free of her father’s grasp and landed on the ground with an _oof!_ before darting off in the direction of the barn. With his hands now free, Blackwall leaned over and took the Inquisitor’s left hand in his to help her back to her feet. Instead of seeing the flickering green light staining her hand, she just saw her own clear skin. It was as if the Mark had never been there in the first place. The Inquisitor raised her eyebrows at this, but as soon as she was back on her feet her concern for it was pushed away as Blackwall pulled her into a quick kiss. Her mind quickly came up with the excuse that obviously the Mark had gone away after she had closed the last rift long ago. Why would it remain on her hand now? 

It was silent for a moment as the Inquisitor recovered her breath from the kiss. It felt like it had been weeks since they had last done that, but in her mind she knew that they had kissed that morning, that a cordial letter from The Hero _and_ Queen of Ferelden was sitting on her desk waiting for a response, and that the little girl who had been named Ellie (short for something elegant that Josephine had helped come up with) was bound to get into some trouble if they left her in the barn by herself for too long. It all came rushing back at her at once, one wave of memories that, once settled, felt perfectly normal.

_This is my life._

The Inquisitor turned to head towards the barn with Blackwall. They would chase Ellie around the barn before she tired out and took her afternoon nap. Then the Inquisitor would begin her reply to the letter before she got started on preparing dinner, and Blackwall would work on training the new puppy they had received as a gift from Serah Hawke for Ellie’s fifth birthday.

_This is perfect._

Suddenly, Ellie burst through the barn doors running at full speed towards her parents, tears streaming down her face. One of her braids had come loose leaving half her hair a wavy mess.

“Mama! Mama!” she wailed. “Mama, there’s people in armor in the barn! One of them looks like Papa! They keep asking for you! They’re scary!” She reached the Inquisitor and clung tightly to her mother’s skirts, her tears staining the maroon fabric. The Inquisitor could hear the sounds of nervous whinnies and barking coming from the barn, then three figures stepped into view. The Inquisitor could just make out the shapes of Cassandra, Solas, and…

_Blackwall?_

She looked at her husband behind her, then the near-exact copy of him standing in front of the barn. It had been at least a year since she had last seen Cassandra in Val Royeaux, and she couldn’t even remember where Solas had run off to. Seeing those two traveling together was strange enough, but another Blackwall?

“What is the meaning of this?” her husband snapped as he stepped defensively in front of the Inquisitor and his child. The Inquisitor leaned down to give Ellie a gentle embrace to assuage some of the fright, both hers and her child’s.

“We need to speak to the Inquisitor. Alone.” Cassandra took a step forward, hand on the hilt of her sword as she glared at the Blackwall that stood before the Inquisitor. For a moment the air was tense, quiet save for the sobs of the little girl. Then Solas took a deep breath and said the one thing the Inquisitor didn’t want to hear

“None of this is real, Inquisitor.”

She clutched her daughter tighter and held back tears of her own.

“That Blackwall is not real, and neither is the girl.”

_No! No! No! They’re lying!_ She wanted to scream, to send those three people away and pretend they had never come here. All of this was real, from the smell of wood-smoke to the toys in front of the house and all the way down her daughter’s beautiful grey-blue eyes.

“You have to come back with us. We need you to help us escape this place,” Cassandra insisted, but the Inquisitor refused to even look at them. The Seeker looked over at the Blackwall by her side for help, but he seemed far too shocked to say anything of use. With a sigh, she looked back at the mage. “Solas?” He closed his eyes and took yet another deep breath before continuing his explanation from before.

“It’s a dream, a fancy of a demon’s making, and you can’t break free until you acknowledge that fact.”

Solas’s voice felt cold and matter-of-fact to the Inquisitor, but in the back of her mind she knew it was true. As badly as she wanted to believe this world was real, there was no denying Solas’s words. Still, she didn’t think she was ready to return to the nightmare she had been living before. This simple life, having a family and a home and no responsibilities beyond what she saw directly in front of her, was far more attractive to her than the reality she was remembering. Her heart was painfully split in two between her duty as an Inquisitor and the perfect life she had here.

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave this property.” The Inquisitor looked up to see the dream Blackwall tensed, fists clenched at his sides and ready to fight despite the fact that he was unarmed. His eyes were focused on the real version of him, his face twisted into a look of distaste and anger. “All...three of you.”

“No, they’re right.” The Inquisitor stood up and put a hand on the dream Blackwall’s shoulder. Her other hand wiped at the tears that were already beginning to fall. “I’m sorry, but they’re right.” She hated the realization. She hated saying it, hated the astounded look on the dream Blackwall’s face, hated the twisted feeling in her gut, the one that came from knowing she had fallen for yet another lie. She reached down and picked up the confused Ellie, giving her one last affectionate squeeze and whispering an apology in the girl’s ear before she gently placed her in the dream Blackwall’s arms. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she repeated over and over again as she turned to walk away. She knew if she looked into that little girl’s eyes any longer it would be too difficult to leave, but she felt the dream Blackwall grab her hand and turn her around before giving her one last kiss on the forehead. He didn’t say anything as the Inquisitor turned to leave again, but that last kiss told her all that she needed to know - he understood, and he wasn’t going to stop her.

As the Inquisitor headed back towards her real companions, she could hear the child begin to cry all over again. It broke her heart to hear her screaming for her mother, but the real Blackwall’s expression hurt almost as much. His eyes kept darting between the Inquisitor, the dream Blackwall, and the child. He knew. He knew exactly what that child was, and the Inquisitor could tell that he wanted this to be just as real for him as it had been for her. As soon as the Inquisitor reached him, though, the sunlit world collapsed around them, leaving all four of them in the sickly green pallor of the Fade. She let her tears flow freely now that the real Blackwall held her in his arms, shoulders shaking and chest heaving with all the emotions that rushed through her. Even through all this, she could still clearly hear the crackling of her Mark reminding her of the true reality that she could never escape.

 


End file.
